Roma

Lots of things have been happening, though not much time to update due to tourism. Mum got here all right and I we've had some lovely food since. You are always guaranteed good food in Italy, sometimes even great or excellent food, like last night where I had an artichoke salad, followed by veal with artichokes and fresh tomatoes. For desert I had white chocolate and pistachio gelati which was fantastic and we sat by the fountain de trezi which is utterly gorgeous when lit up at night. Rome is a very picturesque city with some of the most lovely fountains and churches I've ever seen. The older part of town has most of the ruins, though it's the victory columns like Trajan's and Marcus Aurelius' that have been impressing me the most.

On Sunday, we went to see the Vatican which was quite beautiful, though it's amazing how many statues of the pope's there are in there... *cough, cough* The Pieta really was gorgeous. Then we decided to walk all the way across central rome to our hotel, hitting the various fountains along the way. That was fun, though by the end my feet hurt far too much.

The day after we picked up my bro at the airport then headed into Rome to see the Colosseum. The Colosseum itself was very nice, fun to look at with a lovely display on Nike/athletics in the upper levels and the tour was informative if short. Unfortunately, we had a huge problem with getting in, getting out and being allowed to stay. The guard there took a huge disliking to us since we wanted him to let us out on one side so we wouldn't have to walk around the entire colosseum to get out, what they didn't tell us is when you leave, you can't get back in, even on the same day and with a ticket and we had though the musuem/nike display was outside so when we tried to get in to take our tour an hour later, there was this huge houpla over letting us in and they were going to throw us out, with us not even having looked at the colosseum, or going on the tour and it was of course, the guard who we had hassled before heading the attempt to throw us out. I would have been willing ot leave if I had already seen the thing and screw the tour but not without having seen it, and this was in addition to a rather horrible morning at the airport where they - well, actually, I should explain that the Italians keep cheating all the tourists here out of money, and more than usual, like 3 euros for bread on your table or an unmentioned outside table tax etc. Not to mention the first day when mum and I used the metro, these four teenage girls tried to pickpocket her. They surrounded her, tried to keep her off the train while one of them picked her front pouch. I noticed them doing it and saw the zipper was open so we followed them to another car and mum told them not to steal (*L*), checked that they hadn't gotten anything (which they hadn't since mum doesn't carry a wallet) and they nearly killed themselves trying to get off the train before we called hte police... but it was still rather disturbing and has made us paranoid, and then there's the fact that they moved out things to another room in our hotel without asking us, one of the rudest things I've ever seen a hotel do... - so, back to the colosseum, they finally let us in, but only because I burst into tears at how horrible the day had been (this really hasn't been the most fun vacation for me, and the part with my mum and bro was supposed to be better, not just as bad). The only good part of the day really was the lovely dinner we had in the evening and the gelati at the fountain.

Today was a lot nicer. We took the metro (with my bro and I on guard for pickpockets) and the bus to see the catacombs, which were absolutely lovely. The tour was quite informative and was interesting though I wish it had been a bit longer. The catacombs there were very different from the ones in paris, especially for their lack of bones and the ones here in Rome are a virtual labyrinth. We had a lovely lunch of pizza (with ham, cheese, mushrooms, and artichokes - it's called the four seasons pizza because each topping represents a different season) then hit a nearby museum which had a display of inscriptions from all over Italy along with a display on early Italy (iron and bronze age mostly) and many different statues as is usual here in Rome. We plan on a nice, easy evening, then tomorrow we head to Florence.

Reading the Book of Dreams which is a book of Sandman tales edited by Neil Gaiman that my bro picked up for me. I have a huge Tad Williams fantasty novel to read once that's through but I will try to draw it out since I want that to be my last book I buy here.

Ja ne!

Roma

Lots of things have been happening, though not much time to update due to tourism. Mum got here all right and I we've had some lovely food since. You are always guaranteed good food in Italy, sometimes even great or excellent food, like last night where I had an artichoke salad, followed by veal with artichokes and fresh tomatoes. For desert I had white chocolate and pistachio gelati which was fantastic and we sat by the fountain de trezi which is utterly gorgeous when lit up at night. Rome is a very picturesque city with some of the most lovely fountains and churches I've ever seen. The older part of town has most of the ruins, though it's the victory columns like Trajan's and Marcus Aurelius' that have been impressing me the most.

On Sunday, we went to see the Vatican which was quite beautiful, though it's amazing how many statues of the pope's there are in there... *cough, cough* The Pieta really was gorgeous. Then we decided to walk all the way across central rome to our hotel, hitting the various fountains along the way. That was fun, though by the end my feet hurt far too much.

The day after we picked up my bro at the airport then headed into Rome to see the Colosseum. The Colosseum itself was very nice, fun to look at with a lovely display on Nike/athletics in the upper levels and the tour was informative if short. Unfortunately, we had a huge problem with getting in, getting out and being allowed to stay. The guard there took a huge disliking to us since we wanted him to let us out on one side so we wouldn't have to walk around the entire colosseum to get out, what they didn't tell us is when you leave, you can't get back in, even on the same day and with a ticket and we had though the musuem/nike display was outside so when we tried to get in to take our tour an hour later, there was this huge houpla over letting us in and they were going to throw us out, with us not even having looked at the colosseum, or going on the tour and it was of course, the guard who we had hassled before heading the attempt to throw us out. I would have been willing ot leave if I had already seen the thing and screw the tour but not without having seen it, and this was in addition to a rather horrible morning at the airport where they - well, actually, I should explain that the Italians keep cheating all the tourists here out of money, and more than usual, like 3 euros for bread on your table or an unmentioned outside table tax etc. Not to mention the first day when mum and I used the metro, these four teenage girls tried to pickpocket her. They surrounded her, tried to keep her off the train while one of them picked her front pouch. I noticed them doing it and saw the zipper was open so we followed them to another car and mum told them not to steal (*L*), checked that they hadn't gotten anything (which they hadn't since mum doesn't carry a wallet) and they nearly killed themselves trying to get off the train before we called hte police... but it was still rather disturbing and has made us paranoid, and then there's the fact that they moved out things to another room in our hotel without asking us, one of the rudest things I've ever seen a hotel do... - so, back to the colosseum, they finally let us in, but only because I burst into tears at how horrible the day had been (this really hasn't been the most fun vacation for me, and the part with my mum and bro was supposed to be better, not just as bad). The only good part of the day really was the lovely dinner we had in the evening and the gelati at the fountain.

Today was a lot nicer. We took the metro (with my bro and I on guard for pickpockets) and the bus to see the catacombs, which were absolutely lovely. The tour was quite informative and was interesting though I wish it had been a bit longer. The catacombs there were very different from the ones in paris, especially for their lack of bones and the ones here in Rome are a virtual labyrinth. We had a lovely lunch of pizza (with ham, cheese, mushrooms, and artichokes - it's called the four seasons pizza because each topping represents a different season) then hit a nearby museum which had a display of inscriptions from all over Italy along with a display on early Italy (iron and bronze age mostly) and many different statues as is usual here in Rome. We plan on a nice, easy evening, then tomorrow we head to Florence.

Reading the Book of Dreams which is a book of Sandman tales edited by Neil Gaiman that my bro picked up for me. I have a huge Tad Williams fantasty novel to read once that's through but I will try to draw it out since I want that to be my last book I buy here.

Ja ne!